FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT DBT - PAGE 4

NEW DELHI: In a clear indication that the government is keen on a large-scale rollout of the direct benefits transfer (DBT) scheme before the general elections due in 2014, a key official in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has written to secretaries across ministries asking them to get cracking on the second phase of the scheme. "Every department implementing DBT is expected to begin work without any delay so that rollout takes place as decided," the letter from principal secretary to the PM, Pulok Chatterji, said, adding there was adequate time available for the next phase.

NEW DELHI: Calling Goods and Services Tax ( GST ) and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) as a major achievement of the government, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech said, "GST and DBT will help achieve our aim of higher growth. The JAM trinity - Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhar and Mobile, as advocated by the Economic Survey will help better the lives of poor, Jaitley said. My government's objective is to improve quality of life and to pass benefits to common man, said Arun Jaitley in his Budget 2015 speech.

NEW DELHI: The Committee set up by the government to recommend revenue neutral rate (RNR) for the GST will submit its report in the next 4-6 weeks, said Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian , who is also heading the panel. "We are going to do our best to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST). We will have report (to recommend possible RNR rate under GST) ready in 4-6 weeks. The government is going to do its best to stick to the deadline," Subramanian said at an event here.

NEW DELHI: Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on Thursday described the government's direct benefit transfer (DBT) as a "game changer" for India. He highlighted the fiscal impact of the government's DBT scheme of cash transfers which yielded savings of over Rs.12,000 crore on domestic LPG in 2014-15. "DBT is important not only for fiscal savings ... if the government can deliver these services it would legitimise the state, it would arrest the ongoing trend of de-legitimisation of the state the world over," Subramanian said at a roundtable here on "Direct Benefit and Basic Income Transfers" organised by the International Centre for Human Development.

Ashok Khemka The Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme commenced with the initial rollout in 20 districts covering seven scholarship schemes. Another 23 districts will be covered by March this year. The intention is to link all government benefits to Aadhaar-based identification of beneficiaries and to channelise the cash benefits through Aadhaar-enabled bank accounts. Irrespective of the merits of translating some benefits delivered in kind like in PDS into their cash-equivalent, for the DBT scheme of routing cash benefits through Aadhaar-enabled bank accounts to succeed, some things are essential prerequisites: an electronic database of beneficiaries to be maintained on a continuing and regular basis by the concerned line departments and seeding of the database of beneficiaries with Aadhaar numbers.

NEW DELHI: The UPA government may have designed the direct cash transfer scheme for distributing subsidies as a game changer that will help it retain power, but clearly bureaucrats are not so convinced and very few have joined the programme. Direct benefit transfer (DBT) mission has only three people working on the project despite repeated advertisements for the post of undersecretary and below. "We have repeatedly put in a request for more staff, but it seems that there are not many officials willing to join DBT mission as there is not enough clarity on the future of this project," a senior government official told ET. The biggest apprehension apparently is that the programme may be scrapped.

NEW DELHI: Finance Ministry today relaxed the norms for depositing funds in the bank accounts of beneficiaries under the Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) scheme. "In the case of schemes covered under DBT, where the fund flow is directly from the Central Government to the beneficiaries', the intimation from the bank or National Payments Corporation of India ( Aadhaar Payment Bridge System ) regarding deposit of funds in the beneficiaries' bank accounts may be treated as a Utilisation Certificate," a Finance Ministry circular said.

NEW DELHI: The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme will not substitute entirely for delivery of public services for now and it will also not replace food and kerosene subsidies, Economic Survey for 2012-13 today said. "The DBT scheme will not substitute entirely for delivery of public services for now. It will replace neither food and kerosene subsidies under the TPDS nor fertiliser subsidies," it said. The survey further said the DBT scheme is designed to improve targeting, reduce corruption, eliminate waste, control expenditure, and facilitate reforms.

NEW DELHI: The Modi government has picked up the previous UPA's direct benefit transfer (DBT) proposal and is going full steam ahead to implement across the country 33 central schemes that have been identified by NITI Aayog, the rechristened Planning Commission. DBT involves the transfer of cash or benefits directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries. The revised list of schemes was sent out by the department of expenditure on January 13. Earlier in 2013, a separate DBT division of the Planning Commission had decided to roll out 28 schemes in 43 districts across 16 states in various phases.

NEW DELHI: There is bad news for multinationals GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Aventis and Pharmacia as well as local companies like Panacea Biotec and Zydus Cadila who import biotech-based vaccines and other products and sell in India. The department of biotechnology (DBT) has decided to exert its influence on the ministry of finance (MoF) to raise the tariffs on import of hepatitis B, polio, MMR, rabies and typhoid vaccines to such levels as would ensure that imports don't pose crippling competition to the domestic industry.